When I Tip, You Tip, We Tip

The first time I remember going to a restaurant without my parents was when I was 13. It was a Friday night football game at the high school and my friends and I left the stadium to walk across the street to the newest, hippest, most delicious eating establishment in town. Taco Bell. There was something magical about this Taco Bell. I can't exactly recall what it was. Maybe it was the unbelievable ratio of Fire sauce to Mild Sauce. Maybe it was the fact that bean burrito was $.89. Maybe it was the fact that a developed 17 year old girl with flowing blonde hair out of her Taco Bell issued hat was taking our order. Nope, it was none of those things. The reason it was magical was one reason.

It existed.

Now calling Taco Bell a "restaurant" is probably a little bit of a stretch, but it does have a nice group of tables that are a horrendous color scheme. If Taco Bell was a person it would have been on a makeover show on Bravo 11 years ago. Then someone like Tim Gunn would have given it a new dress with a matching hairdo from place in Beverly Hills while McDonald's looked at and said, "Man, Taco Bell is working it tonight!" Taco Bell’s mismatching wardrobe aside, it was the first place I was allowed to pay for a meal myself without my parents looking over my shoulder. On the list of greatest achievements of my life it is somewhere between getting straight As from the 1st through 8th grade and finding out I can touch my nose with my tongue.

Please don't attempt if you have a runny nose. Or do. Dirtbags.

Once I became of age to drive a vehicle I could now go to fancier restaurants with waitresses on my own like IHOP or Denny’s or really any place that served all day breakfast so I could order French toast at some ungodly hour. "French Toast at 10:43pm? Is this real life?" When you're a kid you never understand the intricacies of going out to eat. Your parents always pay and you sit there and complain that you have to be seen in public with them. When I first went to a restaurant with a waiter I noticed that people would leave money on the table for a "tip." I, of course, knew what a tip was since I was a straight A student and had been reading many Dear Abby columns in the Sunday Star Ledger.

Lonely in Lincoln, you should have left him.

I had heard horror stories from some of the kids in High School (not friends. Kids in High School. Friends would signify that I would talk to them, but really I was eavesdropping with my locker door open through the little vent type thing they had at the top. The magnifying glass I had was a little much, however) about how they were basically working for tips and made less than minimum wage. I vowed that I would make a waiter or waitresses day better by tipping well.

As I was tipping up a storm through various restaurants across America something was bothering me. I never knew how much my parents tipped on anything. When we go out to eat my mom insists on paying and grabs the bill. Every time. I never know how much the bill is or what kind of tip she leaves on it. A few years ago I became all stealth with my monocle and fedora and grabbed her receipt from a place we were eating. I figured we had good service, nothing came out black, and my Arnold Palmer was roughly 50 percent lemonade and 50 percent Iced Tea just like old Arnie ordered it back in the day. I grabbed the receipt and looked directly at the gratuity line.
15 percent

15 percent! I couldn’t believe it. My mother who prides herself on wasting money on things like the scariest doll set (see below) in New Jersey couldn’t be bothered to tip a nice waiter 20 percent.


After finding out this info I vowed to check out more bills to make sure this was a onetime occurrence. Maybe my mom didn’t do the math correctly. Obviously, that’s an invalid excuse since she’s Indian and we’re great at math (stereotype burn), but there had to be a reason. After we would eat I would let my parents walk in front and sneak a peek at the bill. I looked at a majority of them. 17%, 14%, 15%, 18%, 15%, 15%, 25%. “Ooh they left a 25 percent tip at a restaurant. See? They’re not awful people,” I said to myself. Then I realized they left the 25 percent tip at an Indian restaurant. WHAT. Were my parents only tipping Indians well?

I’ll scrub your brown back if your brown back brings me another Gulab Jamun. CAN I GET SOME?!!? No, seriously, can I get some? I’m hungry.

It all came to a head two Christmases ago. We stopped at a Pizza Hut. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. No, we did not invent a time machine and fly back to 1988. We were in a real life sit down Pizza Hut in the year 2009. In our defense my cousins were with us and they are 10 and 6 and only consist of pizza, chicken fingers, and boogers so we didn’t have much of a choice seeing how Kentucky Fried Booger was a little out of the way. The service at Pizza Hut was in a word. Atrocious. I don’t know when the last time you’ve been to Pizza Hut is, but the ages of the people working there haven’t changed. They must own some kind of anti-aging device. Everyone working there is still 16 and under. How do they keep creating these 16 year olds and I keep getting older? Impressive. I’m being told they are not the same person and actually different 16 year olds.

Point Taken.

After what seemed like an hour we ate the greasiest pan pizza ever and the bill came. My mom grabbed it and paid it with her credit card. She signed for it and in the space marked gratuity decided to put a line through it. A line is an odd number to write in the tip line. Oh, that’s right. Because it means you’re not tipping. I waited a second and thought maybe she would just leave cash on the table so as we were walking out I waited. Nothing. Everyone left. My mom must have read the sign wrong because she assumed we were at Katsuya and not PIZZA HUT. What did she expect? A warm towel? A glass of champagne? These kids were doing their best. I made up an excuse, walked back in and left the tip on the table out my own pocket.

I’m not a hero. But you can call me that.

I asked my mom why should wouldn’t tip. She said the service was really bad and they didn’t deserve a tip. I tried to rationalize with her all the reasons she should still tip, but she called me a “dumb people.” I realized my mom is never going to be a good tipper. She comes from a different country and likes to spend her money on dolls. I can’t change her.

Luckily, we never have to tip at Taco Bell.